


Worth her Weight in Beskar

by Webtrinsic



Series: Mand'alor Ahsoka Tano [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Deserves Better, Ahsoka Tano Has Issues, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ahsoka Tano-centric, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, BAMF Ahsoka Tano, Boundaries, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Anakin Skywalker, Hurt Obi-Wan Kenobi, Manda'lor Ahsoka Tano, Melancholy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Responsibility, Therapy, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29963859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Two Jedi happen to book an audience with Mandalore's most recent ruler. Subsequently, wounds unravel with the hope to heal.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Series: Mand'alor Ahsoka Tano [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127162
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	Worth her Weight in Beskar

**Author's Note:**

> my girl needed a therapist so i gave her one. we stan mental health in this household, boundaries, and cutting out toxic peeps and all.
> 
> this also is the fic i alternatively call: "Ahsoka Tano deserved better and she says as much"

There is quiet. It sits in the room as she rises from her throne, the normal echo to her steps seemingly as loud as the clicking of a landmine signifying one's doom.

She waits for the explosion as her hand trails the glass panes. The window is decorated in an array of colors: reds, blues, and the occasional green. All of them reflecting back onto her skin as she looks out at her empire knowing at any moment there would be a knock at the door.

Her hearing is acute, something she is not fond of at the moment as she clocks the approaching steps that will certainly only lead to unpleasantness.

She is not ready but the Manda’lor has no other choice. She’d said no to the meeting but the pair had pushed through anyway, likely having influenced her right hand's mind so he would let them in.  Korkie would have not brought them here if he were in his right mind, and Ahsoka stems the anger flaring in her gut at that fact. Fingers scrunching into fist, uncurling, before repeating the motion again and again.

It’s cathartic yet it’s not enough to stop the racing of her heart. Especially not as her gentle quiet is interrupted by the deep clocking of knuckles rapping at the door before a familiar groan of hinges followed.  She can see the heavy ornate doors slide open in their usual arc from her peripheral although she doesn’t turn her head, not even as the three figures approach.

Two she hadn’t wanted to see, not yet, but that wasn’t entirely the truth either. Her emotions weren’t always logical, no ones ever truly were, so she remembers her therapist's words and purposefully lets her shoulders fall from their brick like placement and breathes deeply and with as much purpose as possible.

There is no shame in her longing. These men had raised her, to what she believed was the best of their abilities even if it hadn’t been enough. There’s a variety of factors and variables mushed in between that fact, but that does not excuse everything.

An explanation is not an excuse, and it doesn’t mean there wasn’t an apology and healing in order. For and from them all really.

Ahsoka had long since endured, as had they, and for now she had to do what was best for herself. For her people as well, but for now she could be selfish after dedicating herself to altruism for so long.  She would be incapable of doing what was best for her people if she did not do what was best for herself.

Their shocked gasps at her presence leave ice in her lungs and her fingers curl against the glass as if it were still sand. She doesn’t know how or where to start this conversation, wishes her therapist was there to guide the session, but the woman wasn’t present at the moment so Ahsoka started with what she figured was important not only for her but her people, and especially poor Korkie who’d just been Jedi mind tricked.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mind control my staff,” she keeps an authoritative edge in her tone at the essential command. Korkie flinches in her peripheral, coming back to himself, the teen sputters momentarily wondering how to proceed.

Obi-Wan looks ready to apologize for what she can tell is both things, barging in and the practical war crime they’d just commited. Obviously realizing by her irritation and apparent coldness, she wouldn’t give them a free pass, not as the Manda’lor and not because they raised her.

The ginger man is aware she is upset with him, on more accounts than this one meeting, and it obviously pains him. It is something to work through, maybe she should start there.

“My apologies,” Korkie begins, immediately cutting himself off at her raised hand and gentle smile, her own way of telling him there was nothing to be sorry for, “Should I escort them back to their ship?”

She waits a moment before answering, letting them stew and also making herself sit with the choice, because she did have one. She didn’t have to have this conversation now, she could take this out, but by doing so she could also cause a further rift, one that couldn’t be sealed.

“No, I’ll give them this audience, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” she suggests, still feeling guilty that they’d used him but Korkie was strong, devoted, and savagely insistent.

“I will, but you’ll be needing someone to escort them back once it’s over. And I think I’m the preferable option over...say Ursa Wren?” 

The Manda’lor huffs an amused laugh, nodding. Korkie steps out, waiting outside the door, available as backup if she so needed, it’s a warming sort of comfort. Facing the music she turns to her family, stomping down the urge to embrace them.

“We apologize for the...manipulation. It’s just that you’re a difficult person to get into contact with,” Obi-Wan explains, clearly acquainting himself fully with the fact she is the ruler of this now thriving planet. Especially after she’d deliberately accosted him for being too involved with politics.

Hypocritical maybe, but Mandalore had always been different. Giving her more chances to act rather than delegate, in all honesty sometimes she forgot about the rest of the galaxy-only remembering when someone reached out and she turned them away or when trade came into play.

“Ahsoka,” her former master seemingly having found his voice uttered, body taught with restraint. Suppressing the same urge as she, in wanting to rush forward for an embrace. It’s enough for her to allow it, realizing he may never hug her again by the time their meeting and conversation is over.

Stepping forward with a gentle, frightfully hopeful smile, he meets her bodily the rest of the way. Tying her to him in an embrace, his chin heavy on the dip of her montrals before he buries his face against them whilst she takes refuge against his heart.

The strong thumps soothing out the tenseness of her brow, loosening her shoulders, and pulling her breaths into something that resembled calm. He’s sturdy, easy to latch onto and hold, even if it makes tears jump forth and brim her eyes. She refuses to let them fall, not now, not when there was so much to be said that would be overlooked by the presence of tears.

She needed them to listen to her words and not the waterworks that would effectively strum the protective thinking that often limited their actual understanding of anything else going on.

Ahsoka wants to wait until he’s ready to depart, until she is, but if she does they’ll be here for ages and no words will ever be said. Painstakingly, Ahsoka slips out of his grasp with a step back, nearly whining as he tries again to pull her back, the squeeze she applies to his arms is enough to bring him back. Gather his own bearings.

“So what business do you have on Mandalore?” it was better to get the formalities out of the way first, surely she wasn’t still procrastinating, surely she wasn’t lying to herself.

Obi-Wan pipes up at this, as she expected, “With Mandalore thriving and the considerate lack of communication, especially with the reforming Senate, we were asked to come negotiate a potential alliance and scope out any potential future threats.” The last part comes out quietly, hesitantly, and she knows exactly why.

“And I assume the threat would be if the Manda’lor happened to be an enemy, such as Maul or even Bo-Katan. That being said, now that you know it’s me, I’m still considered a threat,”

Anakin gawks at that, crestfallen, looking to argue but realizing that she had a point. They hadn’t trusted her enough in the past to believe she hadn’t attacked the people who raised her, and now she had an army to her name, a sith-lord dead by her hand, and she had valid reason to be upset with them. The whole galaxy did at the moment.

“If it helps you feel better I have no plan or reason to attack-” seeing Obi-Wan start to intervene she spoke louder, “But I also have no desire to form any unneeded alliances, especially ones not upholding the standards I need to see met,” 

Both their mouths tug at that, seemingly offended, but truthfully she needed them to be. The Jedi weren’t the golden standard any longer, they’d lost their way, the galaxy and most importantly she saw that and she couldn’t let it go. Not with what had been and what would be at stake.

They all needed change for the better, their institutions, their beliefs, their beings, and Ahsoka can readily claim she has started on that. Bettering herself, and there certainly had been some steps with Anakin if his non-clouded and lack of an influenced mind meant anything. 

But the Jedi order had publicly and likely personally realized their fault, in joining the war, in letting themselves be pawns for the sith lord, in pushing their chosen one into a corner, they’d done wrong. But she nor the galaxy had seen any real change, or even felt a shift in the force.

She knows why, her therapist had explained well enough that often an arrogant person would double back on their beliefs even further when doubt or even true correction was displayed. The jedi were no different, someday maybe.

Obi-Wan rounds to a different tactic, one Ahsoka picks up on immediately. One a misguided or simply misunderstanding parent does when they believe their child is confused or out of their depth.

“Things may be peaceful now, you’ve done a good job at that. But Ahsoka my dear the mandalorians are a warrior people. As Manda’lor you will be expected to lead these people to war and-”

“Why is that any different than what I’ve been doing?” Ahsoka returns, her voice soft as not to blow up with the anger starting in the tips of her fingers, but there is a genuine curiosity in the question. Did he really think there was a difference? Was he really that disillusioned?

Anakin has effectively shut down, watching back and forth between the two of them, wanting to comfort his master and the shocked and utterly dumbfounded look of his face, while also fighting the urge to block his ears and eyes from Ahsoka’s hurt pleading expression and tone. She had a heartbreaking point.

Obi-Wan can’t answer her, gaping like a fish. Effectively pulled from his element. Ahsoka gets this, sees she’s gotten them beat, and vents, starts with the most recent thing she’d spoken with Dawn, her rather enlightening therapist, about.

“I was killing at fourteen years old,” she huffs a sad breath looking down for a moment and looks them both in an eyes with nothing but pure conviction before she raised her chin and spoke with utter certainty, “I deserved better than that.”

Obi-Wan looks incredibly pained, heartbroken, and Anakin mirrors the look, his head tilting in an affirmative nod, a minute one as he was too tense to move with any fluidity. She doesn’t wait for any verbal affirmations, turning her back and slumping into her throne.

“I have a lot of adrenaline, sometimes sitting still is agony and most nights I slide off my bed and lay on the floor. It’s too soft, and-I like how quiet it is in here, when I’m anywhere else, my room, the dining hall-” Ahsoka rests her forehead on her palm, “It’s too quiet, like the calm before the storm. Like something rancid is going to break the serenity and I have to fight all over again, like I have to prepare myself for the bodies that will likely need to be buried."

She looks up again, slumping backwards now with a deprecating smile, “When I was really little and I heard people talk about home, I always assumed that was meant to be the temple. It wasn’t until I got older, ‘til I actually became a padawan that I figured out I felt most as home in the midst of battle. What kind of life is that for a fourteen year old?” The question is more towards herself then them but they want to give her an answer regardless, except they are smart or possibly too transfixed that they act like children facing reprimand, despondently silent.

“I can’t be in a room that I can’t see all the exits in, and I think back to that time Bariss and I were eating dinner. She asked me what I thought would happen to us after the war ended. Funny enough I was more concerned about Anakin when she asked, because I couldn’t imagine myself without war and I couldn’t imagine him either. It kept me up at night, I probably slept less that week than I did for almost the whole war-and I’ve certainly never slept deeply,”

Her foot taps against the ground, her back arching for moment to stretch before she continued with her slumped posture, “Then I fought Maul, and he pointed something out that as much as I wanted to refute it. Tell him he was wrong, hell I wanted to smite the comparison.”

This gathers more of their attention, bringing them back the slightest from their broken trance.

“Tools for a higher power,” she answers their silent question, “And I guess I still am, just now that higher power is me, the force too. But in the end I don’t feel like a person, I feel like a weapon that’s finally taken itself by the reigns. And I don’t want to pull any triggers or ignite any blades, I just want to do what's right for myself and the people I have to look out for now,”

Altruism is a penny per thought she could no longer pay, she looks to her master needing an answer, “Do you hate me for leaving?” The tears do finally spring out at that and Anakin, the chosen one, takes a step back on the cusp of hyperventilating but she can’t stop the questions now that she’d started.

“Do you know how horrible it was to fight that half-sith bastard and listen to him say the unthinkable and have him be right? Not only about me but you too?” Anakin’s shaking his head hard enough there is some fear it will fall off his shoulders, and Obi-Wan stumbles when he moves forward, not to offer comfort to Anakin but to Ahsoka herself.

The Manda’lor knows she’s unpacked a lot, rid her shoulders of an oppressive weight, but it is obvious they need some time to sort things out, she’ll give them that because she loves them all the same, but she knows her worth.

“I can’t run back into your arms, rejoin the Jedi no matter how badly I originally wanted too,” she steps forward, placing a hand on both their shoulders, carefully helping Anakin who was stifling sobs up off the floor.

He looks seconds away from grabbing her into another hug, so she keeps talking in the hopes he understands her offer and her boundaries, “You and the Jedi have yet to make the changes healthiest for yourselves. Therefore...you aren’t good for me. Finally I can dictate what’s best for myself, and after being as selfless as I could for so long. I have to give myself this. And when you, and the Jedi work things out...I’ll be waiting with open arms, okay?”

The two nod in understanding, the three taking a moment to breath together, astounded at the woman the girl they raised had become. Her hand rested heavily on the back on her master’s shoulder and her grandmaster back as she walked them back towards the door.

They open when Obi-Wan pushes it with the force, and Korkie stands at attention. Graciously uncritical of their current well-being. He escorts the two Jedi away, Anakin consistently looking back at her until the doors finally shut leaving her back alone in the quiet.

“I am a deaths rest the end of battle,” she murmurs under her breath into the despondent yet serene quiet, a hope for change on the horizon. Reaching through the force to feel their departure, she feels their shift and the lessening of arrogance thundering their signatures. 

She hadn’t seen so much light in them in ages. The togruta picks up her comm, waiting steadily for the beep, “Dawn do you have an opening available at the moment?”

“Why yes your majesty, I do,”

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


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